So Obama, Merkel, Cameron, Hollande and Renzi -- let's call them the Fab Five -- got on a video conference call to muster their courage and "increase pressure" asking for a cease-fire in Gaza. Later in the day, Bibi delivers his answer, in plain language.

So what's left for the Fab Five after having their illustrious Western collective behinds solemnly kicked? They decide to dump Gaza and instead SANCTION RUSSIA! AGAIN! How brilliant is that as an exit strategy?

Spectacular non-entity Tony Blinken, who doubles as deputy national security adviser to Obama, was keen to stress to Western corporate media that the unruly Eurotrash mob is now "determined to act." No, not against Israel because of Gaza; against Russia because of Ukraine. Such a lovely Orwellian symmetry; the extended Two Minutes Hate from Israel towards Gazans morphs into the extended Two Minutes Hate from the "West" towards Russia, mirroring the extended Two Minutes Hate from Kiev towards Eastern Ukrainians.

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Not even Hollywood could come up with such a plot; Israel gets away with unlawful premeditated mass murder of civilians, while Russia gets framed for an airborne mass murder of civilians that has all the makings of being set up by the Kiev vassals of Russia's Western "partners."

Here I have exposed how sanctions, sanctions, sanctions is the one and only official Obama administration "policy" on Russia. On top of the next EU sanctions, coming soon, the US is piling up -- what else -- more sanctions. After all, Washington is so "concerned" that Moscow will sooner or later invade Ukraine; that would certainly, and finally, answer all those In God We Trust prayers.

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate Was not that one was obliged to act a part, but That it was impossible to avoid joining it... A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, A desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in. With a sledgehammer, seemed to flow Through the whole group of people Like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunaticGeorge Orwell, 1984

Where we stand now

Let's follow the facts. Washington from the get-go said it was Putin's missile that downed MH17. They swore they had evidence. Like in "We know. Trust us." The historical record for the past 60 years at least shows they cannot be trusted. There was never any evidence. Just spin.

Moscow, via the Defense Ministry, presented hard evidence. And called for an unbiased international investigation. Washington ignored it all -- the call and the hard evidence.

The US Navy, crammed with state of the art missile defense radars, has been roaming the Black Sea for weeks now. As much as the Russians, they have tracked every particle flying over Ukraine. The NSA goes for signals intelligence; the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency goes for phenomena in the imagery realm; the Defense Intelligence Agency adds Humint; there's the CIA; and there's the all-seeing, all-knowing Director of National Intelligence (DNI). How come all this trillion-dollar Full Spectrum Dominance apparatus cannot come up with a single, conclusive piece of evidence?

The only risible "evidence" presented so far pictures the acronym salad of US intel agencies spending their time actively reading blogs and Twittering. As in the State Department head in Kiev twittering satellite imagery the New York Times parroted "proved" Russia is shelling Ukraine from across the border. The proverbial "senior US officials" even had to tersely admit on the record they have no proof whatsoever about "Putin's missile." If they had, NATO would be already flipping burgers in Red Square.

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Based on the wealth of info now in the open, the top probability causing the MH17 tragedy was a R-60M air-to-air missile shot from a Ukrainian Su-25 -- and not a BUK (there's also the possibility of a double down; first a R-60M and then a BUK). The R-60M is very fast, with an ideal engagement distance of up to 5 km. That's how far the Su-25 detected by the Russians (they showed the graphics) was from MH17.

SBU -- Ukrainian intel -- for its part confiscated the recordings of Kiev control tower talking to MH17. That would certainly explain why MH17 was overflying a war zone (Malaysian Airlines revealed they were forced to). Hefty bets can be made the recordings are now being "doctored."

Then there are the black boxes, which will not de decoded by the Malaysians or by the Dutch, but by the Brits -- acting under Washington's orders. As The Saker summed up the view of top Russian specialists...

"the Brits will now let the NSA falsify the data and that falsification will be coordinated with the SBU in Kiev which will eventually release the recordings who will fully 'confirm' the 'authenticity' of the NSA-doctored recordings from the UK."

To make it more palatable, and erase suspicions about Anglo-American foul play, the Dutch will announce it. Everyone should be forewarned.

NATO heads, for their part, are droolin'. Kiev's forces/militias will hold "joint exercises" with NATO in Ukraine in slightly over a month from now, on September 1; red alert applies, because this is when Poroshensko said the slow motion ethnic cleansing of Donbass will be finished.

Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia (more...)